64

Is the (new) magic number...?

It’s my birthday. I’ve had a fair few of them and normally they’d not be worth writing about. But this one does have some significance as it is my so-called Beatles birthday, thanks to Paul’s little ditty about being a certain age.

Given that it is actually literally a once in a lifetime opportunity to compare your life, upon turning 64, with the words of one of the greatest popular songwriters of all time, I would be a mug not to seize this opportunity.

So here we go then. This is me, When I’m 64. Line by line.

When I get older, losing my hair

Thankfully I’m doing pretty well, in the hair department. Up top is still pretty well forested, although I’m getting less fond of the moment when my barber holds up the mirror so I can see the back. Thinning but hanging on is probably the best way of putting it. Also, thankfully again, I am not yet prone to that freaky ear hair that men can develop when they get older.

Many years from now

This simple statement is probably the bit of the song that hurts the most. It is no longer many years from now. It absolutely is now. This I am not happy about and I am not ready for it. I feel a lot younger in almost every way except when I put socks on. And there is so much left I want to do, so I do not need this reminder of the ticking clock of time.

Also I realise now that, at 64, I have slept for probably 20 of those years. Yes, I love sleeping. And yes, I have awesome dreams. But in the big picture that is a shitload of lot of time when I could have been doing other stuff.

Will you still be sending me a valentine

I have been married to Tania for 29 years. Valentine’s Day exists only in our world as something we gaze upon from a distance, musing on the commercialization of love.

Wedding anniversaries, however, are a very real, very tangible thing. But after 29 years they are a competition to see who gets the bragging rights for remembering. Like just now, when I checked with Tania that it was 1996 when we got married and she remembered that it was our wedding anniversary last week. A pyrrhic victory yes, given we both forgot the actual day, but a victory for Team T, nonetheless. Damn.

Birthday greetings, bottle of wine?

I do like a glass of wine but I’m trying to drink less of it these days, mainly to keep my sugar intake down. Some birthday greetings and a vodka and diet Tonic is more my speed, but that would be really shit lyric to crowbar into a song.

If I’d been out ‘til quarter to three

Presuming this is quarter to three in the wee small hours of the morning, at age 64, this could never happen without a life-threatening intake of illicit substances. And, even then, I’d probably be curled up in the corner of wherever I was ‘out’ by midnight.

Would you lock the door?

Did men not have their own keys back when Paul wrote the song?

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,

Likewise this gender-based assumption of roles has not aged well. I love cooking. Most nights. And if Tania or one of the offspring doesn’t feel like cooking, that is why God invented Uber Eats.

When I’m sixty four?

Still not quite getting my head round that number.

You’ll be older too

One of the (many) truly genius things about Paul McCartney is how he can work the Theory of Relativity into a 2 minute 37 second love song.

And if you say the word

I could stay with you

Although I do feel, at times, he might over-simplify things. A long-term relationship is much more about give and take than it is about one party going “whatever, you’ll do”. Mind you Paul was apparently, like, 14 when he wrote the song so his world view was still evolving.

I could be handy mending a fuse

When your lights have gone

In my case I could at least recognise that the fuse had blown by the popping sound and the fact that we are now in darkness. Then I could open up the fuse box to see which fuse had tripped. Then I could call an electrician.

You can knit a sweater by the fireside,

Technically we do have a fireside because we installed a gas fire when we renovated a few years ago. But we haven’t used it for years because the double-glazing and the underfloor heating downstairs keeps the house toasty warm in winter. Also, climate change.

Sunday mornings, go for a ride

Only if we finally get round to buying those e-bikes we’ve talked about for ages.

Doing the garden, digging the weeds

Very true. The battle of man versus nature is still a very real thing at Casa Hey, Writer Guy.

Who could ask for more?

Well, I could – but it might appear churlish in the context of this lovely little song.

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,

When I’m sixty four?

See above.

Ev’ry summer we can rent a cottage

In the Isle of Wight if it’s not too dear

I have a slight, some might say pedantic, problem with this part of the song. Paul definitely sings “in” but if I were to rent a cottage on, say, Waiheke Island, I would definitely say “on Waiheke Island”. But if we were to rent a cottage in my spiritual homeland of Hawkes Bay I would definitely say “in Hawkes Bay”. So I am confused as to when ‘on’ becomes ‘in’. And vice-versa. Maybe this is a sign that, at age 64, I am only a few scant years away from being that old guy who shouts at clouds.

We shall scrimp and save

This, unfortunately, is absolutely true. I have banged on, in the past, upon my Hey, Writer Guy soap box, about the implosion of the NZ screen industry which I love and where I have made my home and my living. Even I’m getting bored with me now, but the truth, as I stare out into the void yet again, is that nothing has changed. At least not for me. Moving right along now.

Grandchildren on your knee:

Nope. No grandkids here. If it happens it happens.

Vera, Chuck and Dave

I do wonder if there has ever been a rabid Beatles fan who threatened to disinherit his offspring unless they named their kids Vera, Chuck and Dave. If they were all boys then high school would have been hellish for poor Vera.

Send me a postcard, drop me a line,

I miss postcards. I got all romantic on it some years ago and had a postcard sent to Tania from Timbuktu telling her that I loved her to Timbuktu and back. And it wasn’t even Valentine’s Day. Mind you, if I’d tried to plan it for Valentine’s Day the overwhelming odds would have been against it actually arriving on that given day because it took friggin’ months to arrive.

Stating point of view

Indicate precisely what you mean to say,

Ah English, the language of romance.

Yours sincerely, wasting away

Two things here. First, I am a huge fan of politeness and simple good manners, so I can fully appreciate the use of “yours sincerely” in a love song. I am currently on a campaign (sometimes covert, sometimes overt) against people who do not respond to emails. They will feel my wrath.

Second, I know that when Macca sings “wasting away” he means it in an emotional sense. But at actual 64 my problem is more that having packed it on over the years, especially since I stopped running round a field pretending to play football, a little bit of wasting away would not go amiss.

Give me your answer, fill in a form,

There us something quintessentially British, to me, about asking someone in a song to fill in a Declaration of Love form. Upon payment of the required fee this form will then need to be taken to the correct office to be stamped and approved.

Mine forevermore

I certainly hope, at 64, in my life, that this will be true.

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,

When I’m sixty four?

Yes yes, covered that. But what about when I turn 65 and qualify for that vast government handout? How sexy will I be then, eh?

Ho!

It says “Ho!” on the official lyrics I got from thebeatles.com and indeed Paul does throw in a “ho!” at the end of the song. I am absolutely sure this does not mean the same thing as the word ho’ means today, otherwise it puts a whole new spin on the entire song.

So here we went. This is me, when I’m 64.

On balance, I must admit, it is not a bad place to be.